Senate Republicans Defy Trump and Shelve Voter ID Bill

It seems that no one is coming to rescue the SAVE Act.

Weeks after Donald Trump stressed to his party that passing that voter restriction bill was the “most important thing” they could do, Senate Republicans have shelved the legislation entirely, unable to bypass the Democratic filibuster that stands in the way of its potential passage, Punchbowl News reported Thursday.

Republicans have tried and failed to pass the SAVE Act multiple times. The latest iteration suggested numerous amendments to the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, including line items that would have abolished mail-in voting, required voters to bring proof of citizenship and proof of residency to register to vote, required voter ID, and mandated voter roll purges every 30 days—an enormous bureaucratic task that would have placed undue burdens on local election officials.

Nonetheless, Trump demanded that his caucus figure it out. In March, Trump insisted that the bill would “guarantee the midterms,” and that there would be “big trouble” if Republicans failed to force it through Congress. The president also said that the SAVE Act was such a tremendous priority that it “supersedes everything else,” threatening to veto all other bills until the SAVE Act made it to his desk.

But a lot can change in two months. Now, even the bill’s most ardent proponents are viewing the SAVE Act as a lost cause, pointing to vote-a-rama held in the Senate last month that failed to get even 50 votes in support of the bill, with four Republicans joining Democrats in their opposition.

Tabling the SAVE Act is expected to anger the party’s base, and could spark renewed calls to scrap the filibuster—something that the bulk of the GOP, and especially its leadership, does not want to do. The issue has raised tensions between Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who has thus far resisted Trump’s pleas to ax the long-standing, minority-power rule.

“I completely understand my colleagues who want to maintain the filibuster. We all want to maintain the filibuster, honestly,” Republican Senator Ron Johnson told Punchbowl. “But I know the Democrats won’t. That’s the only division here.”

The wide parameters of the SAVE Act emerged out of unfounded right-wing conspiracies that undocumented immigrants were overwhelmingly participating in U.S. elections, despite the fact that undocumented immigrants (along with legal, non-citizen residents) cannot vote.

Trump already tried and failed to implement voter ID in June. At the time, a federal judge excoriated the president’s efforts, arguing that adding layers of difficulty to the voting process would only serve to harm eligible voters by adding significant barriers before they can cast their ballots.

Saudi Arabia reportedly derailed Donald Trump’s short-lived escort mission in the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump unveiled Project Freedom on Sunday, revealing the U.S. would help ships travel through the Strait of Hormuz. On Tuesday, he suddenly announced the plan had been immediately put on hold in the hopes of finally cutting a peace deal with Iran.

But Trump only called it quits after Saudi Arabia barred the U.S. military from using its air bases or flying through its airspace, two U.S. officials told NBC News Wednesday.

Officials in Saudi Arabia were surprised by Trump’s announcement of Project Freedom, and not in a good way, the officials told NBC News. Leadership responded by telling the U.S. military it could no longer fly aircraft from the Prince Sultan Airbase, or fly through Saudi airspace to support the effort.

Trump spoke with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, but to no avail, the U.S. officials said. As a result, Project Freedom has been put on hold while the president scrambles to restore access to critical airspace.

When asked whether Project Freedom had come as a surprise, a Saudi source told NBC News: “The problem with that premise is that things are happening quickly in real time.”

Meanwhile, a White House official said in a statement that “regional allies were notified in advance.”

U.S. allies weren’t the only ones caught unaware by Trump’s changing plans. His own Cabinet members were singing the praises of Project Freedom just hours before the president chucked it in the waste bin.

Democrats in Congress are investigating whether President Trump’s pardons came with a payout for him.

CBS News reports that Democratic Representatives Dave Min and Raul Ruiz, as well as Senator Peter Welch, have sent letters to over a dozen of the people Trump has pardoned or given some form of clemency, investigating whether they received the clemency “through intermediaries, financial contributions, or other forms of influence.”

The letters note that many of Trump’s pardons have gone to his allies, and the lawmakers asked pardon recipients for contracts showing how much money they paid to lobbyists, social media influencers, lawyers, and others to persuade Trump.

The lawmakers said in the letters that Trump’s pardons and clemency are “depriving victims of compensation and justice,” pointing out an analysis from California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office that found the president’s actions nullified almost $2 billion in recovered money from Medicare and tax fraud, as well as victim repayment.

If the recipients of the letters don’t “respond, they run the risk of highlighting themselves—of being the subjects of future congressional investigations and creating more of a target on their backs for potential further criminal prosecutions,” Min told CBS. He added that Trump’s pardons send the message that people can “get around the justice system,” which “gets to the heart of what is wrong with America right now under this administration.”

Democrats are investigating pardoned financial criminals like Changpeng Zhao, who made billions from cryptocurrency before pleading guilty to money laundering, and Trevor Milton, who was sentenced to four years in prison for securities and wire fraud charges in 2023 for defrauding investors with his electric truck company, Nikola.

Milton owed millions of dollars to his victims, and he’s one of many pardoned by Trump who are now off the hook for the restitution they owe. But since Democrats don’t control Congress right now, they don’t have subpoena power, so these letters carry little—if any—legal weight. In the meantime, Trump can collect rewards from all of the people he has pardoned.

The Justice Department is investigating potential insider trading related to the skyrocketing oil prices caused by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and Lebanon. The department is specifically looking into at least four instances where traders made over $2.6 billion betting that the price of oil would fall moments before it did, according to sources who spoke with ABC News.

According to the London Stock Exchange, traders bet over $500 million that oil prices would drop on March 23, just 15 minutes before Trump announced he’d be pausing his planned attacks on Iran’s power centers. On April 7, traders bet $960 million on oil prices falling. A few hours later, Trump announced a temporary ceasefire. Ten days later, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi went on social media to state that the Strait of Hormuz was open—and traders bet $760 million on falling oil prices just 20 minutes before he did. On April 21, traders once again somehow had the awareness to bet $760 million that oil prices would fall just 15 minutes before Trump announced a ceasefire extension.

All signs point to someone with insider knowledge using this erratic war to enrich themselves—something the Trump administration has been accused of multiple times.

In January, an unknown Polymarket user bet on the U.S. invading Venezuela and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro being forced out of leadership by January 31, betting more than $33,000 while the odds were only at 6 percent. That trader made $400,000 in less than 24 hours. It was later revealed that the user was a U.S. soldier who was part of the raid on Maduro, and he was charged with “unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain.”

And last year, Trump proclaimed on Truth Social that “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT,” a mere four hours before announcing a 90-day pause on most retaliatory tariffs except for those on China, causing stocks to shoot up.

Observant Americans shouldn’t get their hopes up regarding any actual consequences coming from the probe, as it’s being led by a compromised, biased Justice Department.

Political insiders have found a new way to make cash off of election season.

Betting on the success or failure of political candidates has effectively become commonplace in the industry, NPR reported Thursday, with campaign staffers making thousands of dollars from their respective candidates.

One staffer working on a statewide campaign in the South told NPR how an external poll, shared prior to its release with their team, launched a wave of internal bets in support of their candidate. Internal campaign data showed their candidate faring worse than the external poll, but that didn’t matter.

“Myself and others started placing bets before that poll came out,” the staffer told NPR on the condition of anonymity. “And then, sure enough as soon as that poll came out, the stock went up and everybody made money.”

There’s apparently no shame in the game, despite recent attempts by online prediction markets to curb the behavior. In late April, the prediction market Kalshi—better known for sports betting—banned and fined several political candidates after a company probe found they had bet on themselves.

“Because you have all this information and knowledge that isn’t publicly available yet, it’s almost foolish not to bet on it before it’s made public,” the staffer said.

The practice has raised questions about the ethics and legality of campaign betting, and what has become known as “political insider trading.”

The process is as easy as can be imagined: An insider will become privy to nonpublic polls related to the campaign, and use the unreleased odds from the polls to inform their bets on sites like PredictIt or Polymarket. If the new poll indicates better odds of success than the odds on the website, they’ll buy low with what’s known as an event contract—knowing that the poll, once released, will raise their candidate’s favorability.

“The most I’ve ever made is thousands,” the staffer told NPR.